


Inked

by orphan_account



Category: Shingeki no Kyojin | Attack on Titan
Genre: Alternate Universe - Library, College Student Eren Yeager, I'll add more tags as i go, Light Angst, M/M, there are no spoilers
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2018-03-22
Updated: 2018-03-22
Packaged: 2019-04-06 07:22:41
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,211
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/14051862
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/orphan_account/pseuds/orphan_account
Summary: Eren Yaeger was going to go far in life. That much everyone knew.





	Inked

Eren Yaeger was going to go far in life. That much everyone knew.

Sure, he might not have got straight As in maths, but whatever he focused on, he achieved it. Sports, dating, school, you name it. That's what he'd always been told - "you'll achieve anything you set yourself up to". And so, he believed it. He pursued goals and he achieved them. During school, he'd made tons of friends and talked his way to good grades whenever his knowledge didn't suffice.

A little hot headed, sure, but he always knew what to say and he always knew not to take a no for an answer. After finishing school, he'd been accepted into his top law school choice, and was sure he'd become a great lawyer someday. Hell, he'd even get paid for arguing. A dream come true, if you ignore all the reading involved.

So be it, his first week in law school had been great. He'd joined the soccer team already, his previous team captain experience more than enough to lure the coach, and made new friends. Sure, his roommate Jean was annoying as hell but you can't just have it all.

Though maybe he could convince someone to change rooms with him. Mental note.

This story finds Eren on a Friday night, his second Friday of law school, to be exact, at 22:43, to be even more exact, flipping through one of the recommended lecture books for his class.

He was determined to be the top student, and there's no such thing as too soon when it comes to nailing all your classes.

There was, however, such thing as too late. He yawned and scratched his head as he tried to sit straighter. He gave the sentence another try, and then two more. Someone should've told him law school would involve so many new words. And that's not even the Latin - apparently English has some pretty fucked up words of its own as well.

Deciding this sentence was just beyond his capacity at this time of the day and week, Eren marked the page and closed the book - a pretty thick one - before packing his stuff in his bag and heading to the library attention desk.

Being so late into the night, the whole building was practically empty, no one but himself and one other lonely human sitting behind the desk. He walked slowly allowing the person to hear his footsteps and look up, but as he drew closer, he realised he wasn't being noticed. He cleared his throat once he reached the desk, looking at the mop of black hair that was the only visible part of the desk guy's face. He couldn't tell whether he was looking at a phone or a book or whatever behind the desk or if he was just asleep.

"Excuse me"

Nothing.

Growing impatient, Eren extended his hand to lightly tap the person's shoulder as he talked again. "Excu-"

He jumped back instinctively as the other person jerked up brusquely. The desk guy looked comically disorientated at first, quickly glancing around until his eyes settled on Eren, the look on his face instantly changing to one of sharp annoyance. He frowned as he tried to relax again, and spat a "what".

Eren was taken aback for a second or two, thinking of an apology before remembering the guy glaring at him was actually sleeping on his job. Fuck this, he had nothing to apology for.

"I need to retire this" he said firmly as he showed the book, doing his best to maintain eye contact and look intimidating. Would've worked better if the other guy didn't look like he was about to slit his throat open.

There was another few seconds of staring before the guy's frown finally made the slightest of shifts, thin eyebrows arching a little bit before his eyes moved to the book in a dragging motion, as did the rest of his body as he checked out the book. Eren handed him his student card and the guy took it without another glance.

The motion took as little movements as needed, each one neither slow nor hurried but rather despondent before Eren's book and ID were back on the desk in front of him.

Eren took them and didn't bother to suppress his eye roll at the lack of attention. He glared a little more as the guy rested his cheek on the palm of his hand waiting for him to leave.

"What" he said, tone flat, as he looked up to meet Eren's glare with an uninterested look. He no longer looked angry but there was still a hint of annoyance in his features.

"Can't you say anything more than 'what'?"

The guy raised his eyebrows and furrowed his brow at the same time. Somehow.

"The fuck else did you need" he said nonchalantly.

Eren scoffed.

"Unbelievable"

"Why thank you"

Eren just kept staring with an annoyed smile and raised eyebrows, mouth agape. He finally shook his head and muttered a "whatever" before turning back and walking out of the building. Some people were just dicks.

 

***

 

Last week had been hell. Literally. Living. Hell. Finding a job to fill the space between his _other_ jobs meant more money, sure, but at what price. _My soul. My soul is the price_.

Levi let his body fall onto the couch before curling into a tight ball and resting his eyes shut. Beautiful. Sleeping was just beautiful. The faintest of smiles tugged at his lips as he cuddled further against the coach.

The next thing he knew, sunlight was pouring from the window and onto the top of his head, and there was a faint sound of a spoon clacking against a cup. His eyes fluttered open as they tried to accustom to the light and he sat up on the couch. A fuzzy blanket fell off his torso as he did, and he stared at it in sleepy confusion.

"You awake?" came a voice from the small kitchen in front of him.

"Hmm" he grunted, rubbing his fists against his eyes. He sighed and relaxed his back against the couch before fishing for his old phone from his slack's pocket and checking the hour. 10:37am. Hell he was sleepy.

Footsteps drew closer to him before Furlan's face emerged from behind the TV to sit on the other end of the couch. His roommate sipped quietly on his cup before giving him a sideways glance.

"You look tired"

Levi gave him a deadpan stare. _No shit._ Furlan chuckled.

"You'd rest better in your bed. Without your shoes on, even"

Levi raised his eyebrows before looking down to his feet. He didn't remember taking off his shoes - though he didn't remember much more than dropping dead at the ass crack of dawn - but they weren't there. Furlan smiled and got up.

"You got some time before work, you should rest"

Levi nodded and wrapped himself with the blanket again, resting his head back and shutting his eyes for a while. He didn't have work until midday so he could sleep some more. The bedroom seemed like an unnecessary luxury though.

 

Eventually, he had to get up and get changed. He showered and shove his clothes into the washing machine before changing into his second outfit - an exact replica of the first one. He found his shoes neatly stacked next to the couch. Furlan wasn't half bad, he thought. Proved that practically anybody could be trained into being tidy. He put away the blanket inside the closet as he brewed himself a coffee and toast.

The weekends weren't that bad. He only worked four hours at the café, and then had all of seven hours for himself before the night shift at the convenience store. He'd sometimes visit his sister Isabel during those hours but, to be honest, most of it was spent either sleeping, writing or cleaning.

The weeks though, were pretty much living hell. His schedule went something like this:

12:00am - 6:00pm: working at the café, making coffee, cleaning up stuff and dealing with obnoxious clients.

7:00pm - 11:00pm: working at the school library, bored out of his brains but at least getting some rest when he didn't have to deal with obnoxious over-achieving students.

11:00pm - 7:00am: after running his lungs out of his ass he'd work the night shift at the convenience store near the school. Mind you, when he signed up for this job he was expecting a chill cashier type of job, but he didn't notice that stores organise stock and clean up during the least busy hours, aka his hours. Thursday nights were free and that was pretty much the only silver lining.

Overall, the library job had became his favourite job. It blew that he barely got any time to sleep now but it still beat having to move stuff around. At least that's what he thought during the weekend, when he didn't have any shifts. Mondays were a whole different story.

When he arrived to school that day, he nodded at Petra with a slight smile. Petra was his coworker, although she left at 8:00pm once most of the students were home. To be fair, she did most of the work, so Levi didn't quite hate her.

"How was your weekend?" Petra asked with a smile as Levi stack his bag with the café uniform into a drawer.

"Miss it already" Petra laughed lightly and didn't insist. Levi liked that about her. She never asked if he did something fun - she probably was sensitive enough to intuit he didn't. "How's the thesis going?" he asked her.

Petra rolled her eyes and sighed dramatically.

"Never ending... I met my tutor this morning. He says he's not convinced with my 'perspective' on it. Like he couldn't have told me that four months ago..." Levi chuckled, and Petra gave him and annoyed look. "Hey, it's not funny".

He just smiled and shook his head.

"Who said uni was funny"

"Well said"

Levi sat at his place before the desk and glanced around. There were only about six students sitting on the tables in small groups or alone. He distinguished a lanky figure sitting on one of the corner tables, huddled up with a book and taking quick notes. He recalled the guy from last week. What the fuck was he studying so hard for so soon into the semester. Some people were just obsessed, he guessed.

He scrolled through his phone and checked in a couple books and then out some others before Petra left.

Three students remaining and no coworkers whatsoever, it was the perfect time to doze off for a bit.

Or so he thought.

He was almost asleep when something heavy pushed his shoulder with a quick tap, and he immediately jumped up, eyes wide open in surprise. And sure, there he was, lanky and messy looking, last week's guy.

He was giving him an impatient look, and Levi noticed he had pushed him awake with a book this time. He narrowed his eyes into a glare.

"You still here?"

The guy rolled his eyes and slid the book over the desk.

"Yeah. You still sleeping on the job?"

"Still being a little shit?"

The boy scoffed.

"What is _wrong_ with you? Can't you just do your fucking job?" Levi glared at him and tried his best not to swear. _Really_.

"You need to return the previous book before checking this one out" he said. A big fat lie but so what.

"I did. I returned it this morning".

Levi looked at him with an unimpressed look.

"...You came to the library twice today".

"Yeah, problem?"

Levi straightened on his chair and sighed, grabbing a pen from the desk and playing with it as he talked,

"Nah. But you might want to go out, you know. Play with the other kids".

The guy huffed.

"You know, there's nothing wrong about giving two shits about your career. You could use some yourself".

"Nah, I'm okay"

He tried to remain as impassive as possible, but boy was this asshole being an annoying little fuck. What the _fuck_ did he know. He left the pen and grabbed the ID from the desk to check the book out. Eren Yaeger, the ID said, an ugly ass picture with his face next to it.

"Do you even study here?" the boy insisted.

"That's none of your damn business".

He dropped the book and the ID loudly onto the desk, a big clash echoing through the room and startling a girl that was reading in one of the chairs, the only person in the room other than them. She gave them a curious look that Levi returned with a stare before going back to her book.

"So you don't?"

Levi looked up, frowning. Seriously, what.

"No, I don't"

Eren nodded before grabbing his book and ID.

"At least I'm not wasting my time, you know".

Levi had to close his fists - he could feel his eyebrow twitch involuntarily.

Eren just shook his head and left, leaving Levi staring out the glass doors, dumbfounded, before taking it out with a kick to the desk, followed by a rapid glare at the girl.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> thnx for reading! as usual idk what i'm doing lmao so leave all opinions comments or ideas you have! or just say hi hehe  
> ps. title is random i just wanted to post it but i might change it later lmao


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